Beetle sweet
by mightya
Summary: It all started one cold night, when a usually ruthless blonde woman walked by privet drive and found a baby abandoned on a door step. Rita decided to take him in. Find out what happens when Harry is brought up by a vindictive beetle, and taught the art of reputation-shredding at his mothers knee.
1. Chapter 1 A cold Tuesday night

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry potter. :,( sniffles.

**A/N : This is a story that I have come up with suddenly one day. some parts of this chapter is from Harry potter and the philosopher's stone. I do not own those chapters. Anyway, have fun reading! Read, rate and review. The more people who like this story, the faster i will write. Though probably, chapter 2 will be out by tomorrow, or a few hours depending on where you live. Chapter two will be a little short though.**

**Prologue I **

It was a cold and windy Tuesday(or rather Wednesday morning) night. As it was already far past midnight, all the residents of privet drive were already in bed and fast asleep, thus lone figure of a middle aged woman with a crocodile handbag, prowling around like a tiger, looking for a good story was seen by no one. She cut a striking figure, with her blonde hair styled in a tight bun, narrowed eyes which told one that she was a seasoned reporter, and sharp - oh yes, _very _sharp and perfectly manicured, long nails.

A few minutes ago, she had heard the unmistakable 'pop!' of someone apparating. And Just seconds ago, the lights of the lamps lining the street had mysteriously went out - literally; little balls of white light had floated out of each lamp, all floating towards the same direction - leaving the street in complete darkness. Instinct told her dark streets were breeding grounds for - for lack of a better word - interesting things to happen. deciding to sniff out that story, Rita skeeter, reporter extra ordinar stuck to the shadows and silently crept towards the source attracting the balls o' light.

To her immense surprise and slight displeasure, at the door step of number four privet drive, she found Dumbledore holding the deluminator, in which several balls o' light were entering. No, she was not jealous that the balls o' light were attracted by the old coot; who in his right mind would? Rather, she was disappointed because Dumbledore, was the who she found on the street. Because of his reputation of being the world's greatest light wizard of all time, even if she published some minor suspicious action that he did, not many would believe her.

"Albus would probably say that he was trading socks - of all things - with an eccentric muggle, and of course most of the public would believe him," Rita thought, scowling darkly while doing so.

She would need solid, hard evidence that he was doing something that could be considered slightly evil in the eyes of the public before they would believe her. Unfortunately, she didn't have her camera with her, so 'convicting' Dumbledore would be Impossible, with a capital I. But even then, many were Dumbledore supporters, and were convinced that he was a perfect angel and could do no wrong.

Curious to know what Dumbledore was doing, Rita decided to continue her investigations. She hurriedly ran and hid behind the house. To her shock, the cat sitting the brick wall morphed into a stern old woman wearing a cloak and looking distinctly ruffled.

"Animagus," Rita muttered under her breath, along with a string of curses. She hoped that the cat had not seen her. She had not been very careful in making sure that she was unseen before the crazy old coot with a long beard came. Not wanting to miss a word that he said, she reached into her bag and pulled out a peacock dictator quill and some parchment. She tapped on each of them with her wand and set them to float. Eagerly leaning forward to eavesdrop, Rita cupped a hand behind her ear and listened, while the tip of the quill scratched away.

* * *

"How did you know it was me?" The woman asked.

"my dear, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." Albus answered, eyes twinkling merrily.

"you'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," She retorted.

"All day Minerva? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed by a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."

'Minerva' sniffed angrily.

"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be more careful, but no - even muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursley's dark living room window.

" I heard it. Flocks of owls... Shooting stars... Well, they were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in kent - Ill bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."

"You can't blame them," Dumbledore said gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.

"I know that," Minerva said irritably."but that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in muggle clothing, swapping rumors."

She threw a sharp sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he would tell her something, but being true to his nickname the manipulator, as he was called in later years, he didn't. She went on: " a fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"

" It certaintly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"

"A what?"

" A sherbet lemon. Their a kind of muggle sweet that I'm rather fond of," Dumbledore explained.

"No thank you," said Minerva coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for sherbet lemons. And she was absolutely right.

"As I say, even if you-know-who has gone - "

"My dear professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this You-know-who nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort."

Rita flinched violently upon hearing this. She had no doubt that this 'Professor Minerva' hussy did too. Dumbledore, who was unsticking two sherbet lemons without a care in the world, seemed not to notice Minerva's reaction.

"It all get so confusing if we keep saying you know who." "I have never seen any reason to be frightened of Voldemort's name."

"I know you haven't," said professor Minerva, sounding half exasperated, half admiring." But your different. Everyone knows that your the only one you-know - oh, all right, Voldemort - was afraid of."

"you flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because your too - well - noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."

Rita had heard enough. Whatever they were saying was utter rubbish, anyway. Even with her wonderful fabrication - sorry - writing skills, a juicy story could not be spun out of that innocuous conversation. Furious, Rita hid her dictator quill and parchment, still writing with fervor, behind a bush, in case an interesting topic comes up later on. She reminded herself to come back later to pick them up. Immediately afterwards, she crept to the next house, then turned on her stiletto heels and apparated back to her house. She didn't want anyone to hear the distinct 'pop!' of apparation after all.


	2. Chapter 2 the boy who lived

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Harry potter, though I can safely say that... I Love Splintered! It's my new favorite book. Can't wait for sequel to be out on January 7. *Squeee!* . **

**A/N: Sorry for getting chapter 2 out 2 days late! Was making A cover for it. You can expect the next chapter to be out in maybe a day. Read rate and review! :) **

**Thanks for reviewing, Slytherin66!**

Prologue II

Rita skeeter, the stylish and quick witted reporter has reached home.

"Pop!" She appeared back in the living room of her home mid-twirl, right next to a small three legged table creaking - nearly breaking, under the weight of a large pile of manuscripts and an even larger pile of law suits; This woman has certainly made more than her fair share of enemies. Unfortunately(for her - several prominent figures would be ecstatic to see her out of commission) she was wearing a pair of four inches high heeled stilettos that day, so when she landed back home, looking like she was in the midst of doing a grotesque mutated version of a pirouette, she lost her balance and fell. Rita's eyes widened in horror as the wooden floor rushed up to meet her. Flailing her arms around madly, she grabbed the edge of the table to stop her fall. She breathed a sigh of relief, when she saw that her slim, beautiful nose was safe from getting hit and deformed by the ground. She used her free hand to pat it comfortingly.

"Nooooooo!" She screamed, as the table tipped over due to her weight, causing her to fall and the piles of paper and heavy table to fall on top of her. The pieces of paper scattered all around her, while she took in a deep breath and pushed the table off her body. A head with a horrible scowl on its face poked out of a mound of paper. Rita pushed herself back onto her feet and swept not-so-imaginary dust off her mauve robes.

She had never been good at apparating. She hated the sensation of being squeezed through a tight tube, and later popping out of it like a cork of a champagne bottle, but it was necessary what with the type of work she did. During her times at Hogwarts learning how to apparate, she had been splinched so many times, the instructor had even offered to give her a refund if she would give up trying to apparate, as it was clearly impossible for her to do so without splinching herself. That was a feat to behold, as everyone knew that the ministry of magic was a greedy and corrupt bureaucratic honeycomb and would siphon off your hard earned galleons when they had a chance. Actually getting a refund was incredible. However tempting it was, she didn't give up, and she eventually passed the test And got her license. Though she still had to confund the examiner to ignore a pice of her robe that had splinched.

Rita assessed the damage. A table leg had broken off, but that could be easily fixed by a '_repairo'._

"Reparo," Rita took out her wand, tapped it lightly and said. The splinters of the table melded with those of the broken leg, connecting seamlessly Consider it done.

She stared at the papers scattered at every corner on the room grimly. Now the papers, the paper cuts and bruises that she had gained on the other hand, would take more time to fix. Rubbing the blue-black bruise on her leg ruefully, she got to work.

An excruciating hour later, all the papers had been neatly sorted into several stacks according to importance. Rita's arms were sore from carrying heavy stacks of paperwork and her back was sore from all the times she had to bend down to gather or pick up the papers.

"Never again would I do such laborious work," she decided. She needed a house elf, and needed one soon.

Just then, Rita suddenly remembered her quill was still at surrey.

"Surely their conversation must have already ended. No one would spend an hour on meaningless idle chit chat; except Lilian brown an old classmate of mine of course - she could talk for hours non stop," She thought.

Rita went to remove her stilettos, exchanging it for a pair of more practical ballet pumps. "I don't want to have a repeat of this incident after all," she thought, wincing as her hand unconsciously rubbed the bruise on her thigh.

She took a deep breath and turned on her feet. "Determination... destination... deliberation..." Rita repeated in her head.

She heard a 'pop' signaling that her apparation was successful. She opened her eyes and saw not the familiar fire place of her home, but a small baby wrapped in a blanket, abandoned on the door step amongst empty milk bottles, where Albus had been. Rita frowned. The baby did not look normal. He had black hair and emerald green eyes which reminded her of a certain red headed classmate. His tiny fist was clenching the blanket, as he slept soundlessly. Perhaps the his most striking feature would be the jagged scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Rita would bet her life savings that this child was a wizard. She discreetly ran over to the bush, stuck her hand in and fished out some items and returned to the door step of number 4 With her dictator quill and parchment in hand.

Rita skimmed over the parchment. When she was done reading it, her face broke into a ferocious grin. Gently, she picked up baby Harry, defeater of You-Know-Who and her soon to be son.

"Not normal indeed..." She murmured, before apparating back home, but this time with her quill and parchment in her pocket and carrying Harry in her arms.


End file.
